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Reader Submission: Paranormal Activity at the Pharmacy Museum

As
a ghost tour guide in New Orleans, you tend to get repeat questions:

Are
we going inside any haunted locations?
Unfortunately, no, not unless you have a cool million or so to put
down on a historic residence in the French Quarter.

Do
you believe in ghosts? The
answer to that is yes. I’m fully aware that many guides out there
are all-in-out skeptics, but I’m not one of them.

Which
leads us to . . .

Will
we experience any paranormal activity on our tour tonight?
This one’s the kicker, mainly because all guides only wish
that we could make ghostly phenomena perform on demand. How much
easier would that be for tour companies or paranormal investigators?
So much easier.

So
that question of whether or not guests will experience ghostly
phenomena while on a tour? Highly unlikely—until, that is, it
actually happens.

**

The
first time occurred last August. I remember only because it was
deathly hot outside and I was, unfortunately, sweating profusely.
That night, only two sisters had joined me for our Killers and
Thrillers Tour. They were incredibly nice, interested in the
paranormal and intrigued by the mystery of the darker side of New
Orleans’ past. The Killers and Thrillers Tour was a perfect fit.

As
we made our way to our second stop, the sisters asked me about
different haunted hotspots in the city—in New Orleans, it’s
difficult to come across a place that doesn’t have a ghost story or
two lingering around.

But
perhaps my favorite story of all entails the Pharmacy Museum. Its
original owner Dr. Louis Dufilho was the first licensed pharmacist in
the entire country. The first floor of the museum still boasts that
19th century atmosphere, with items like Voodoo Love Potion,
medicinal leeches and laudanum (opium) stocked on the oak shelves.
But the dark and gory tales of the property didn’t begin until
Dufilho’s retirement and the property’s sale to pharmacist Dr.
Joseph Dupas.

Photo Provided By Ghost City Tours

Whereas
Dufilho was a man greatly loved by the citizens of New Orleans, Dupas
was the guy you avoided if you could. In the mid-1800s, he had been
arrested for violating health code violations, for bludgeoning a
politician in the head with a hammer, and for nearly (or so they say)
murdering a young girl with his medicinal work.

As
I related the tale, the sisters exchanged looks of disgust. It only
got worse, though, because it was rumored that Dupas practiced
experiments . . . and he preferred to do so on pregnant women. After
hiring local grave cart drivers (who were bringing yellow fever
victims out to the cemeteries for interment) to poison pregnant women
on the streets with chloroform, they would bring the women to the
pharmacy so that Dupas could practice c-sections. Most often, the
women died, bleeding out right on the table—in the chances that
they survived, it’s said that he murdered them before handing them
back to the grave cart drivers.

Dupas
suffered from syphilis, and so mentally became more unhinged with
every passing year.

It
was at this point that I noticed one of the sisters begin to sway.
Her skin turned yellowish-green. She asked me to sit down and I
quickly helped her to the sidewalk curb. Rifling through my bag, I
pulled out an extra water bottle and offered it to her.

“It
was hot,” I said. The sun was beating down, torching our necks
with its unforgiving rays.

And,
to be completely honest, that first time I chalked up the
near-fainting to a bad case of heatstroke. Even after I asked the
sisters if they wanted to reschedule or be refunded, they both
assured me that they had been so excited for the tour—they weren’t
backing out.

So
we continued.

**

The
second time occurred perhaps three weeks later. It was the later
tour, the 8PM, and night had already slipped over the sky and
blanketed the heavy sun.

The
air was cool for once. My group was much larger that night, probably
around twenty, and we were camped out directly in front of the
Pharmacy Museum. At that time, I liked telling the grisly story
right before its front doors so guests could peek inside the glass
windows and glance up to the entresol (the French Quarter’s version
of a basement) where the experimentations allegedly occurred.

Like
always, I jumped into the storytelling, weaving it this way and that
like a musical performance reaching its crescendo. Throughout I
sporadically glanced at a woman who looked ready to pop at any
moment. Her hands continuously went to her pregnant belly and I
offered her an I’m sorry
smile for the nature of the story.

It
wasn’t her I should have been worried about, but the woman beside
her. She reached out and clutched her partner’s arm. Immediately
I jolted into action. Again I rifled through my bag for an extra
water bottle, shoving it into her hand as the group formed a circle
around us.

“Are
you okay?” I asked.

Her
nod was weak. “Yeah,” she whispered, “It was just . . . It was
weird. One minute I was totally fine, and the next this haze just
came right over me. I’m really, really sorry."

I
told her not to apologize. I pretended that it all had to do with
the hot Louisiana summer, even though it wasn’t that hot anymore
and even though her dizziness had struck almost to the same exact
sentence that the first girl had weeks prior.

That
night, the pregnant woman was the only one to capture any paranormal
activity at all on her phone.

I
tried not to let either of the instances faze me.

**

It
happened again two weeks later. Same location, same part in the
story. Like the two previous times, it was another woman.

This
time, when I saw the lady’s hands dip to her knees, I said: “This
is going to sound really weird. I know it will. But I think that if
you move . . . even just five feet over . . . you will feel
dramatically better."

She
gave me an odd look, which then forced me to explain why I thought
this to be the case, but she took my suggestion anyway. Almost
immediately her color cleared and her gaze lost that glossed
appearance. The tour continued without any further incidences, and
if my guests thought me a little weird for overreacting they didn’t
tell me so.

**

The
final instance came perhaps two or three weeks after the near-miss.
Up until then, I had convinced myself that they were pure
coincidences. The French Quarter, especially if people have been
boisterously drinking all day, can take out even the best of us.

On
the tour that night, my group was middle-sized. Already I’d gotten
the question, Will we see a
ghost tonight? Probably not,
I told them. What’s the best
way to capture paranormal activity?
Use your phone or digital camera, I said.

We
neared the Pharmacy Museum, took our places. I launched into the
tale, immersing myself in the grittiness of our city’s history.
The yellow fever epidemics, Dupas’ scheming ways.

I
should have known that something would happen—the air felt electric
that night. As I spoke, the Irish girl beside me went down. With
reflexes I did not know I even had, myself and her friend caught her
by the arms.

We
caught her, just barely, before she would have gone smashing to the
concrete. To say that my heart was beating fast would be an
understatement—how could this
keep happening?

Wearily,
the girl glanced up at us. My fingers were posed over my cell to
call 911.

The
first words out of her mouth were: “Am I in Dublin?"

My
first words were: “No, but I imagine right now that you wish you
were."

After
explaining to her what had happened, as she remembered nothing at
all, the girl turned to her three friends with a laugh. (It’s got
to be said that I
was not laughing at all). “Guys,” she exclaimed, “How about
the fact that I said right before this tour that I didn’t believe
in ghosts."

Her
friend giggled. “You did
say you wanted to be shown that ghosts exist."

While
they laughed, I pretty much suffered a mini-panic attack. I ushered
the girl a few feet over, just like I had before, and the yellow cast
of her skin cleared. She drank heartily from my extra water bottle
and discussed how it was so weird that that had happened to her.

It
was weird. The first two times could have been chalked up to
coincidences, but three or four times? No. Something paranormal was
happening. I glanced up at the three-story townhouse. Guests who
visit the museum often experience a disorientating scent (like
formaldehyde) while ascending the staircase. Ghostly activity occurs
on almost a daily basis, with security cameras picking up shadowy
figures and museum artifacts being moved by unseen forces.

Had
Dupas somehow decided to show me that he held the power? I didn’t
question it. After that instance, I brought my tour groups across
the street instead. Nothing like that has ever happened again to me,
and if my groups have asked why other companies stand by the front
doors but that we don’t . . . Well, I explain to them what
happened.

I
explained that Dupas’ penchant for women and making them feel week
did not stop with his death, but has continued for the last century
and a half.

Usually,
they don’t have much to say after that. Neither do I.

About
Maria Pinheiro

Maria
first came to New Orleans to attend Loyola University, only to
quickly realize that the Crescent City's weirdness matched her own.
Since then, she's left only to visit her hometown in the Northeast
and to attend graduate school across the pond in England. She's been
a tour guide in a medieval townhouse, a Viking museum, and, most
recently, a guide for Ghost City Tours. Through working as a tour
guide for Ghost City, Maria was offered her current position of Media
and Public Relations Director. Her role for the company comprises her
favorite topics: writing and history. If you’re looking to talk
murder, mystery and scandal in Pre-20th century America or Medieval
Europe, she’s your girl! When not working, Maria can generally be
found bringing her two black labs on adventures.

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